rights or reproductive rights or health care. they are coming after basic human rights that are guaranteed to us as americans, and even though that's terrifying, it's motivating and what keeps us fighting and what i think should molt vat us to november to keep fighting and standing up for what's right in this country. >> you and murray are changing the conversation, changing what what people understand about these issues, and how they affect everyone. thank you for taking time to talk to us today. >> of course. thanks for having me. tonight at 7:00 it begins. rachel maddow will be here leading our coverage with our msnbc colleagues, on the air previewing this first presidential debate hosted by cnn. we will be airing the debate itself and then we will be here watching it together with you and come back on the air for post-debate analysis when it's over. so plan to spend all night with us. "the beat" with ari melber

starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, all night. i'll be with you all night. see you soon. >> see you soon. thanks. welcome to debate night in america. this special edition of "the beat" will take you through everything you need to know as we ramp up. this live shot outside the debate hall for joe biden and donald trump. this is the earliest general election debate in american history. that's not all:alex wagner is there and will be joining us in a moment. the biden campaign pushed to jumpstart interest in the race by making this debate earlier. we could tell you tonight a huge 73% of voters say they are planning to watch tonight. and you can, too. nicolle mentioned this debate airs right here on msnbc in about three hours with rachel maddow leading the special coverage in under an hour. i can also tell you this is the first debate between a president and a former president. kind of an interesting factoid there. also the first time these two

have been near each other at all since their last debate. remember, donald trump broke tradition. he skipped the swearing in of president biden after donald trump failed to overthrow his own loss. the first time either candidate has debated in four years. neither did any primary debates this cycle. there are a lot of ways this is higher stakes than it would already be. that last debate was intense, heated, important. many viewed it as one of the turning points that favored joe biden's eventual win. >> we handed him a booming economy. he blew it. >> blew it? >> he blew it. >> i ran because of you. i ran because of barack obama because you did a poor job. >> one of the most racist presidents in modern history. >> i am the least racist person in this room. >> the president also is opposed to roe v. wade. that's on the ballot as well in the court. in the court.

so that's also at stake right now. and so the election is all -- >> you don't know what's on the ballot. why is it on the ballot? >> because -- >> why is it -- it's not on the ballot. >> it's in the ballot in the court. >> i don't think so. there is nothing happening there. >> that's how it went down. turning to today, trump arrived in georgia in the last hour. biden here you can see touching down, he is hugging stacey abrams there. a big star in that state of georgia. and she is part of our special coverage tonight. she joins me live in a few minutes. other differences from past years under the rules negotiated partly to deal with what you just heard, donald trump's incessant interruptions and breaches of decorum, tonight mics will be muted during the other candidate's answer time. there is no audience at all. so tonight matters. in a political world where people sometimes seem to disagree on literally everything, including facts themselves, both campaigns agree that tonight is big. nobody's pretending otherwise.

and biden's fans and the maga crowd both have seen how the past debates shaped the race between these two people. so you know how they debate. you know it's the same two people. you know they have a big debate tonight that could matter. indeed, there are people who remember how an often underestimated joe biden used a pretty sturdy performance in that debate to cast donald trump as basically unhinged and in over his head. and we remember what happened after that. something rare. an incumbent president lost an election by several states. now, if campaigns are largely about storytelling, the candidates origin story, why he or she is right for the job now, the story of our nation, where we've been, where we should be going, debate night is a little different. and i really mean this this. debates are more like a rap battle between the two emcees,

where the words matter, the attacks are high stakes, because everybody's listening, and even if you think, well we, kinda knew there were going to be attacks, i knew would say that about me or my family or any mistakes i ever made, the right words can still change everything. that's true in a debate or a rap battle. just ask dan quayle, who was dunked on so memorably in a single debate, not only hurt his campaign, it defined his career for years. just ask trump, who as i remind you went from incumbent president to january 6th agitator after debates with biden. or drake, the most popular emcee in the world until a recent rap battle -- debate redefined him for many. so biden is sometimes underestimated and he has sometimes stumbled, but of all the attacks he spaced this year, tonight he may have to channel both the president in him and the bruising brawling candidate in him and maybe a little bit of

eminem and his famous eight mile rap battle, standing tall until he is telling trump, go ahead, tell these people something they don't know about me. with that they are joined by reverend al sharpton who knows his way around politics. he is has been on that stage. and alex wagner. on the ground keeping an eye on everything for us all evening with our special coverage live from atlanta. alex, i go to you first. you can comment on the past debates, on the rap battle of it all or tell us what you are seeing on the ground. >> reporter: i don't know. am away loud to comment on the rap battle when you are in the same -- you are not in the same room. on the same program. i don't know that we'll get eminem, but the sense i get from biden surrogates and people in atlanta tonight is there is a degree of confidence about joe

biden's ability to show up. i think this is there a degree of trepidation around the "x" factors, to some degree i think is natural. one of those being the cut mics. on one hand, the cut mics are useful if you want to get a point across. on the other hand, the donald trump of it all is muted, makes joe biden's job a little bit harder because the american public is not privy to his interruptions and general insanity. that's something that the biden campaign wants to underscore, how unreliable and chaotic donald trump is. the other piece is donald trump can still talk and joe biden can still hear him. we won't hear donald trump talking, but joe biden will if the mic is on mute. so is that going to throw joe biden off his game? nobody will know until the debate unfolds. the other piece is, you said this at the top of the show, this matters. and i think everybody recognizes that as such.

and to some degree, as john heilemann was saying in the previous hour with nicolle, i think the general standards and the way we judge debates and sort of do the postgame analysis is different now not just because the stakes are so high, but because this could be the only debate that we have. this could be the onlymoment the american public watch these men on stage talk about the essential issues ahead of us. >> rev? >> i think that it is very true that this is the first time in history we have two presidents debate a former president and president. it's also the first time in history we have one of them as a 34 -- is a 34 convicted fell be. i don't care what preparation they have given trump. if president biden is able to interject that i am talking to a man whose parole officer had to be informed he was going to atlanta, i think these are the kinds of things that will

provoke trump to get off his game plan. everyone is saying he may be cool. he may be cool unless he is jabbed with the right things that he is sensitive about. in two weeks, he is going to be sentenced. if i was joe biden, i would compare -- and i have been on the stage, 23 presidential democratic primary debates, where those lights go on you, everybody that briefed you is in the -- it's you and the people you are running against. and when joe biden is looking at at this guy, he has got to say, this guy is not qualified to be president from what i did as senator to vice president and helped recover the country to what i have done now. these are the facts. his facts is he was a businessman who filed bankruptcy four or five times, failed in certain other endeavors, went on to be president, and mismanaged covid-19 that brought us in one of the worst economic down

spiral that we've seen that i have been able -- so i helped recover the country twice. once as vice president under obama after bush's debacle and i had to come behind trump's debacle. who do you want as president? >> almost like you have done this before. i want to show you something. this is a graphic of all of the debates joe biden has done. he has debated on the national stage more than any other living candidate. here was the memorable debate he with palin. >> nice to meet you. thank you. can i call you joe? >> look, the people in my neighborhood, they get it. they get it. and they know they have been getting the short end of the stick. >> joe six pack, hockey moms across the nation. >> the middle class has gotten the short end. the wealthy have done well. corporate america has been rewarded. we change it. barack obama, will change it.

>> say it ain't so, joe. there you go. we need to send the maverick from the senate and put him in the white house. >> replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just gave to the insurance company. i call that the ultimate bridge to nowhere. >> was it a simpler time, alex? i don't know. i will let the public judge. but people felt then he did well and that palin, like trump, was a challenging foe. your thoughts? >> reporter: well, look, i mean, i think the contours of that debate were markedly different than the ones today. i mean, joe biden is, yes, of coarse, going to be battling donald trump, but also battling a caricature of himself as an feeble old man who has no business running the country. there were gender dynamics on display, but it was about barack obama in that clip. that's who he was talking about. joe biden wasn't making the case for himself to be president. he was making the case as the

president's wingman. i think the stakes are lower in that event. i think it's as much what joe biden says tonight as how he delivers it, and what he needs to give the american public and the skeptical video voters who don't know who they want to pull the lever for in november is a sense of confidence, you know. it's just a sort of -- the tenor of what needs to happen tonight and what will happen tonight, the emotional tenor of it is so different than it was in 2008. almost an apples to oranges comparison. >> apples to oranges? >> i agree. >> both healthy snacks. i will show you something. that comparison alex made and something that you deal with, with trump, he changed how debates work. we reached for culture and music and things sometimes. not everyone is a political junkie. a popular comic, he has a riff about how trump changed in '16 what debates are in the country, maybe for the worst.

take a look. >> the first one is the best one. a republican primary, everyone's up on stage and they are doing their political [ bleep ] like the first couple guys that talk, i am from kentucky and i love education. the crowd is like, nice. we didn't know what was coming. the next guy, i'm from georgia and i love religion. the crowd's like, pretty good. this is a good one. this is a heated debate. finally got to trump's turn to talk. he was like, rand paul is ugly? and the whole crowd is like, oh! we didn't know he could do that. you can do that as your thing? >> you could do that as your thing? >> and he did. but what was entertaining four years ago is different now. again, i cannot emphasize enough, here's a man that has been accused of committing crimes. does he want to look like he breaks all the rules?

if he is the only one breaking the decorum of a debate tonight with the moderators and his opponent, then i think he plays into the image that he's someone that is totally unyielding to any rules and that he is certainly one we can't trust to run the country. he has to try to convince people he is not the irresponsible guy they just saw convicted in a courtroom. >> alex, with your agreement and blessing, we would be remiss if we didn't show a little bit of reverend al sharpton on the debate stage. >> agree. >> hit it. >> blacks were three-fifths -- what do you mean? gays and lesbians, are they human or not? >> of course. >> the wto, wrong from the beginning. you cannot change it.

you must rescind it. >> we cannot continue to let the lack of democracy in washington, d.c., become the dirty little secret of american politics. they support trade agreements. they supported what i think is the most anti-civil rights act of our time, the patriot act. >> there it is. rev, any final thought what you learned doing it that's relevant as we watch tonight? >> i think that you've got to be passionate. i think you have to have the facts. and what all i did, alex still didn't vote for me. that's why i'm at msnbc. [ laughter ] >> respect! respect, rev. >> reverend al sharpton, former presidential debater. alex wagner, inside the debate room. thanks to both of you. let me tell folks what's coming up. i have a debate expert who has prepped ten different presidential candidates.

staey abrams live from atlanta next. ams live from atlanta next ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. if you have chronic kidney disease you can reduce the risk of kidney failure with farxiga. because there are places you'd like to be. farxiga can cause serious side effects, including ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration, urinary tract, or genital yeast infections, and low blood sugar. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection

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>> sir, i don't know what they are teaching you in florida, but this here is georgia. this is stacey abrams country. >> the republic of -- >> birthplace of r.e.m. and tlc. >> "snl" talking about stacey abrams country. the south has something to say. and stacey abrams is our special guest tonight. georgia became the swing state and they powered biden's 2020 victory. abrams organized the ground work there, flipped the senate seats, was greeting president biden today. stacey abrams is the former democratic leader of the georgia house. welcome and what do you see as critical there tonight on the ground? >> thank you for having me. and i think you all articulated it perfectly. joe biden has to remind america of the consequence of returning to the four hellish years of donald trump. we have been told again and again to take trump seriously, not literally. we now have to do both.

>> this is a person who, when he did not win his election, fomented an insurrection. was a literal attack on our capitol that left people dead. when he did not get his way, he committed crimes and he has now been convicted 34 times. we know that he both seriously and literally does not have the best interest of this country at heart. if we look at joe biden, we know he spent the last four years being both serious about our progress and literal about the investments. hundreds of billions of dollars put into infrastructure, into new jobs, into helping to restore the confidence around the world in our country. this is a man who has done what he said he was going to do. and so if joe biden reminds people of that in tonight's debate, which i believe he will do, and if donald trump shows up and reminds people who he was four years ago, who he has been for 70 plus years, i think we will see president joe biden

re-elected in november. >> it's interesting, a lot of folks around biden feel as long as people wake up to the choice, stakes, policies they are in a good spot, as opposed to the superficial, meme wars. if you go back to the debates, as you know, there was a lot of policy discussed. here was some of it in 2020. >> the president also is opposed to roe v. wade. that's on the ballot as well. and the court, in the court. and so that's also at stake right now. and so the election is all -- >> you don't know what's on the ballot. why is it on the ballot? >> because -- >> why is it on the -- it's not on the ballot. >> he says he is smart because he can take advantage of the tax owed. he does take advantage of the tax code. that's why i'm going to eliminate the trump tax codes -- >> what are you doing -- >> because you were were -- >> you weren't president and screwing things up. >> what do you think is the key policies that sister to be driven home tonight? >> i think those are two

important policies. one is, of course, the fact that in half of the country, women do not have access to the right to control their bodies. we know that that is the direct result of donald trump. again, seriously and literally he stripped women of the right to control their bodies. we know that he put in place a tax cut. if he renoose and expands it, it will cause a recession, the recession that joe biden has kept us out of, will absolutely happen. people will lose money. we will see cuts to medicare. see cuts to social security. and we know that donald trump does not believe in democracy. we will see further erosion of the right to vote. we have 28 states that have restricted their laws sense the last presidential election. simply because they thought too many people participated. they thought too many voices were heard. so in these states, including the state of georgia, people like brian kemp and ron desantis

and greg abbott followed trump's lead and made it harder for people of color, for young people, for the poor to cast their ballots. for the disabled to cast their ballots. and so those are three critical issues. the right to vote, the right to control your body and the right to be able to take care of your families. if joe biden articulates those issues, he will absolutely distinguish himself from donald trump. >> and a little bit more to say on the last clip, the rules and the mute button. half the time there is a portion of donald trump, which means people may also hear things like this. take a listen. >> frankly, what i say and oftentimes it's fun, it's kidding, we have a good time. the russians doing the hacking. maybe there is no hacking. need lenders aren't babies. they are killers. we have some bad hombres here and we are going to get them out. you apologize? >> no. >> am i allowed to finish? >> one at a time. >> i /* am am i allowed to finish?

>> it's ridiculous. >> i would like to know why aren't you bringing up the emails? >> you brought -- >> no, it hasn't. i have great respect for women. nobody has more respect for women than i do. >> you are fun up here tonight, i have to tell you. >> how do you think as a biden surrogate and alley, deal with that if it turns into that stuff? how much do you respond? the whole nation's watching. big enough stuff as a person would respond without being derailed? >> we are not electing a jester-in-chief. that's what donald trump tries to be. what we have to see from president biden is what we've seen not only for the last four years, but throughout his time in office. which is that he is the mature person on that stage, that he is the person who is actually thinking about the people and not thinking about himself. every time donald trump flings insults or refuses to answer questions or demonstrates his absolute lack of knowledge about how our country operates, he is showing he is only in this for

himself. all joe biden has to do is be himself and remind america he is in it for us, he has a served us, he has put not only investments for us, but he has led this country forward out of what could have been so much worse because, as reverand al sharpton pointed out, rescued this country not once, but twice. if we restore donald trump, we are giving the country to someone who doesn't care about the people who live here. >> stacey abrams, thank you very much. i know you will be watching tonight. later the democratic debate guru who coached barack obama, we will get his wisdom. rachel maddow leads off our special coverage. stick around for that. the break down of how the debates land on the front pages to the viral moments. next, a strategist on this debate next. strategist on this debate next. ♪ (cheery music) - they get it. they know how it works... and more importantly... it works for them. - i don't have any anxiety about money anymore. - i don't have to worry

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is taking over coverage in about half an hour, this debate is not just for news junkies. if you watch msnbc every day, we love that. but it's not just for you and those of us who are super into it. this thing is a huge national interest. "usa today" giving it the big lead and dubbing it presidential debate opportunity and risk. "san francisco chronicle" covering memories of a chaotic debate resurfacing. detroit, the newspaper headline writers asking, is it a big deal or big yawn? it's still on the front page before you. the gravity of this much anticipated rematch is being felt everywhere in the country. >> tick tock. today is the day. >> tonight is the first presidential debate which tell me why i'm more excited for that than i was the nba finals this year. >> republicans are absolutely

panicking how the presidential debate is going to go. >> if joe biden is asked about the border at any point, how in the hell is he going to defend and explain that? >> most people want to see exactly who is going to mess up the most. >> take a drink whenever biden says, come on, man. take a drink if either candidate calls the other one by a nickname. best of luck. go america. >> go america. some people have all sorts of ways of engageong this. go back to the days of george h.w. bush. we have someone who was there, joe trippi, ran howard dean's campaign and worked on different political projects. we found him backstage, this was in primary debate season, right after dean had been on that same stage as al sharpton and others we showed you earlier. >> most of the questions asked of us from them were taxed. any time that we are the full focus, that's good for us. so the other candidates don't do

that, that's their -- that's what they did. we're fine with that. >> joe trippi talking about it backstage. here with me at harvard as we dug into that campaign. i am thrilled to tell you on a big debate night, he is not on all that much. he agreed to join us next. he ag. '? boring. think about it. boring is the unsung catalyst for bold. what straps bold to a rocket and hurtles it into space? boring does. boring makes vacations happen, early retirements possible, and startups start up. because it's smart, dependable, and steady. all words you want from your bank. for nearly 160 years, pnc bank has been brilliantly boring so you can be happily fulfilled... which is pretty un-boring if you think about it. if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's disease... put it in check with rinvoq... a once-daily pill. when symptoms tried to take control, i got rapid relief and reduced fatigue with rinvoq. check! when flares kept trying to slow me down i got lasting steroid-free remission with rinvoq.

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it's debate night in america. watch it right here on msnbc and we are joined now by joe trippi, a democratic strategist, senior advisor to the lincoln project

and campaign veteran. worked tore kennedy, a digitally focused campaign, howard dean, and you have seen the folks on the plane there. knows his way around a big debate stage like this one tonight. joe, thanks for being here. >> thanks, ari. you somehow stay the same while i got old. good to be with you, man. >> nice of you to say. i wouldn't go that far, but i'll take it. sharpton was up when your candidate was up. what is different that you know, being so close for it, prepping for it, having plans, some work, some don't, what can you tell us about that as we gear up for tonight? >> i think this was an easy one to prepare for. i think it's the reason the biden people wanted to do this so early. because this is -- you know, carvell used to saying it's the economy, stupid. i think this is the contrast, stupid.

biden's mission is contrast, contrast, contrast. contrast on demeanor, contrast on policy, contrast on record, no matter what trump does, immediately go to contrast. immigration, contrast that with mass deportations. on every single -- just go straight into contrast. for that reason, i think it's actually, i would assume it was fairly easy prep. i mean, not going over it a lot, obviously. but i think joe biden will know what his mission is. i think he is on his mission. i think that's part of why they wanted this debate, and i don't think there is anything trump can do to avoid the contrast. i mean, whether he is the new calm trump, whatever, whichever guy shows up, it will be a real -- i think that's the mission of the biden people. >> you are talking about camomile donald, who we don't always see?

>> right. >> look -- >> the deep state finally got to him, too. >> here is the thing. you are referring to the strategy behind it. as we've shown, a lot of americans are gearing up. they may or may not remember, it's not usually this early. it's a big deal. the strategy, if you are up by a lot, if you think you are up so much you don't need to debate, tu don't. and that's why donald trump skipped the debates in the primaries. here both sides interestingly think they need this, at least the first one. there is no contract, there is no law that will make them do another one. but this one tonight, both sides seem to think that they need or benefit if by doing it, that nobody has such a wide gap that they are begging the other side to do it. i want to show last time was similar. i mean, trump was the incumbent president. he broke other traditions. he skipped some primary debates. he ultimately felt like covid, economic cataclysm, he needed to

do it. and biden benefitted from that, as i mentioned. take a look. >> under this president, we become weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided, and more violent. >> he doesn't want to saleh and order because he can't, because he will lose his radical left supporters. >> he has an answer. maybe we should drop a nuclear weapon on them. >> i never said that. >> he did say that. >> you made it up. >> to your point, what do you see as the fundamentals why they want to do this, willing to do it early, and who might be right? >> again, i'm absolutely convinced that the biden people want the country to focus on the contrasts between those two men. actually, just those clips that you just saw between decency and lying, i mean again, make the country focus on that contrast. let them see it again. remind them of what that contrast looks and feels like. that's why i think -- i think it was a blunder by the trump people to agree to this.

i think it's a big mistake. and i think they have realized that as they get closer and start talking about how, you know, biden, who was sleepy joe, suddenly is going to be, you know, hopped up on something. it's the only way they can explain how he is going to roll over them tonight. i am pretty confident that it's the contrast, just those clips that you just showed us, demonstrate that. it reminded everybody now of that moment. and it's going to happen for 90 minutes tonight. i think starting in june now, particularly after the convictions, felony convictions, the focus is starting to get more to the two of them away from some of the third-party candidates. they will pop up and around, but i think that's what the biden people wanted to do, make that contrast clear. >> i will show you one more thing, this collage we have that dramatizes with real photography

all. different debates joe biden has done. more national debates than any living person. if you are a hater as the kids say, joe, you might say, well, his -- well, jaw, supreme court justices experience people in business, a lot of people are around because they are good enough to stay at the top of their game and they get older. he is older, obviously. that's not a secret. both are older. when you look the spread of experience, how does that fit in tonight? >> i think, look, he is not going to be surprised by a lot. the other part of this, this is in a lot of ways predictable. they know -- joe biden knows where donald trump is going to come on inflation and on immigration, on crime. he knows that. it's basically -- and he is a good debater. you know, gosh, i watched him debate since back in, you know, the '87- -- going into the '88 race before he got out.

he is pretty quick on his feet. i still think he is today. we saw that in the other debates, the last one in 2020. you know, shut up, man. you know, that's gonna -- yeah, make a drinking game because he may say that lot tonight, even with the mics turned off. but i think that that experience, you know, and i would -- i would add another thing. with that experience, also in debating comes wisdom. i think he'll know, i think he is much more disciplined now than ever in terms of knowing what he wants to do, knowing what his mission is, and because his mission is heart felt about the soul of the nation. i think it was important when jill biden today telegraphed i think that i want you to not -- but listen to his heart tonight. so i actually think part of that is going to be to demonstrate his heart tonight, which again more contrast with trump. >> big debate night.

joe trippi, thank you. coming up, we turn to barack obama's debate prep advisor next. bate prep advisor next (♪♪) (♪♪) bounce back fast from heartburn with new tums gummy bites, and love food back. (♪♪) if you have chronic kidney disease you can reduce the risk of kidney failure with farxiga. because there are places you'd like to be. farxiga can cause serious side effects,

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containment. 40 years ago ronald reagan faced something you may have heard about. being a president and being told maybe you're too old for the job you currently hold. and then a lot changed when he used the big debate moment to

say this. >> i will not make age an issue of this campaign. i am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience. [ laughter ] >> it was the kind of moment that made a difference. there weren't viral videos back then. there was no twitter. but word got out whether you heard it live or later, the front pages seized on that moment. they discovered -- discussed, i should say, policy, but also addressed what reagan was able to do, let the air out of an issue that might have hurt him. bill clinton a breakthrough in a different format where they had audience questions. this was '92. >> tell how it affected you again? >> um. >> you know people who lost their squlobs and homes? >> mm-hmm. >> i saw what happened in the last four years. in my state, when people lose their jobs, there is a chance i will know them by their names.

when a factory closes, i know the people who ran it. when the businesses go bankrupt, i know them. >> bill clinton's political acumen in that format so good there were strategists when said you should never agree to debate with him that has live audience questions. now, barack obama emerged in 2008 and found his stride dealing with john mccain. >> the american people have become so cynical about our politics because all they say is a tit-for-tat. and back and forth. we can have tough vigorous debates around issues. what we can't do, i think, is try to characterize each other as bad people. >> something to think about for today. and in 2016. so questions posed at a debate were important and allowed the whole nation, anyone interested enough to watch, a view of how

different candidates treated democracy as one of our guests reminded us earlier tonight. do you take them literally? >> you will absolutely accept the result of this election? >> i will look at it at the time. i am not looking at anything now. >> that is not the way our democracy works. we have been around for 240 years. we have had free and fair elections. we have accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them, and that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage. >> "new york times" reported on its front page about that clash and of everything discussed at the debate, "the times" got it rate. the fact that trump wouldn't say if he would accept the election's result in '16 was a warning shot. when he did the same thing in 2020, we had a violent insurrection in this country for the first time ever. our next guest has done debate prep with every one of those campaign cycles.

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you mentioned the navy, for example. and we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military's changed. we had these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them, ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. >> education for the candidates

during the debate supplied by barack obama. bob barnett has been a debate prep coach for obama and nine other presidential candidates. he is a williams and conley partner, experienced runs over so many years, he played a key role in debate prep and personally played the role of bush, cheney and then bernie sanders, some of those democratic nominees he prepped. welcome back to "the beat." >> thanks. nice to be with you. thank you for having me. >> you prepped so many. what does joe biden need to know tonight and what advice has he problem play heard from some of the times of people in your role and people you know well on that team? >> he has a great team. i worked with every one of them. he has to d several things. first, i hope he has the opportunity to tell people who are now finding, paying attention. so things he has done, and the ramifications of those. second, i hope he gets a chance to talk about the future because

elections are about the future. third, as my friend and client mr. trippi said, the contrast is critical. the contrast on everything from the economy to immigration to democracy to reproductive rights could not be clearer. >> bob, you are also known as a pretty good lawyer. lawyers will tell you, if you have control of the rules, you might have a better control over the outcome. and the biden campaign pushed hard to deal of what some of they viewed the breaching of the norms and rules last time. something new from cnn. it's almost funny or goofy. but they demonstrate what the new system will look like tonight because of this mute button. you know, most adult candidates have not forced a mute button on everyone. but this is where we're at. take a look at this from today. >> and so let's say i'm answering a question. my light is green and i'm

speaking. phil's microphone is off and his green lights are not illuminated. he will interrupt me and this is what it will sound like. my volume remains constant while phil's interruption can be difficult to understand. >> let's try the opposite. my microphone is on. victor's is off. and he is going to interrupt me. my volume remains constant while victor's interruption can be difficult to understand. >> all right. there you have it. >> ari, there is a myth there. sorry. >> go ahead. >> first of all, the muted microphone will still -- the person speaking on the muted microphone will still be heard over the air. donald trump is going to speak a lot louder than victor did in the demonstration. second, and most importantly, the candidate's ear is going to be open. and the candidate whose microphone is live is going to be hearing the chatter from the

candidate whose microphone is muted. so i think unless you are going put them in isolation booths like the old $64,000 question, remember that, ari? you're too young to remember that. >> vaguely remember. >> it's not going to work for donald trump. >> you are making a little -- this isn't full-blown news, bob, i will call it nerd news. you are making a bit of nerd news. you are saying that the way this has been discussed in the political media has been overstating how muted he will be and that while it's a prism of sorts, he is still going stock heard if he decides to pipe up a lot, you think? >> i was privy it to a test of this once, i think during the eight primary debates, and if you talk loud enough, and we know donald trump can talk loud, you can be heard. you know how sensitive the microphones are. we'll see. the other issue that's interesting is it gives the

director, from whatever network, cnn now, abc later, an awful lot of authority over two people running for president of the united states. i think that's going to cause some discussion, too. but we will see how it works. >> yeah. here was obama discussing joe biden. this was in the third debate '08. take a look. >> joe biden, i think, is one of the finest public servants that has served in this country. his entire life he has never forgotten where he came from. coming from scranton, fighting on behalf of working families, remembering what it's like to see his father lose his job and go through a downward spiral economically. >> final question for you. how much would you advise joe biden to remember to tell that human side, which can get lost, especially when you're president and there are wars and economic problems and everything else tonight? >> i think it's important. joe biden who i have known since 1974 when my then-employer

walter mondale went up to the j&j dinner at delaware to speak. he is an empathic, intelligent, caring human being, and the more of that we can see tonight, the better. i hope we get the chance to do so. and a lot of that is going to be dependent on the moderators. >> i tell you, you got 20 seconds until i go to rachel. >> 20 seconds. the question is, will they do fact checks. i think part of the job of a moderator is -- not every fact, but fact checks over big things. that's what followups are for. i am sure they have had this discussion in moderator school. we will see what they do. i hope they do that. >> bob barnett, debate guru, thanks for joining us. our special coverage of tonight's debate you can watch on msnbc continues right now with rachel maddow's special coverage. ♪♪ >> good eng. >> good evening. >>